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ZOMG AFTER ALMOST TWO MONTHS this is the entry where I catch up!
Too bad I'll fall behind again when my computer gets sent off to be fixed.
Yesterday after classes ended I had a nice long work period and chat with the Smartest Girl in School. I'm really enjoying school a lot more now that I have relationships with some of the students.
Granted, this made me get home a little later than I wanted but I thought I'd still be okay for time before getting to my English conversation group. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed and after making excellent fried rice with egg (or more accurately for what I'd made, fried egg with rice lol) I arrived at the station just in time to watch my train take off.
Well, after some awkward, unintelligble conversations with The Actress, I hopped the next train and was only a few minutes late. I'd considered riding my bike again, but I knew it'd take just about as long as waiting for the next train, plus I'd be tired and half to bike all the way back. Going so far once a week is probably enough.
The conversation group will meet in an old rathole of a building, kind of creepy and run-down, in fact. At first I was a little nervous about how things were going to turn out, seeing as I've had bad experiences going into situations where people had certain expectations of me (which usually are not made known to me until after the fact). As it turned out, I'd successfully made my activities applicable to multiple levels of English, and even the students whose English was quite poor turned out warming up. Suddenly the impossible 20-something Japanese was also intelligible and between all the intelligibleness, both languages were a huge success. I ironed out my plans with Mochi for Sunday's cruise ship welcome, but I'll be dressing up as a samurai from 6 AM to 9 PM, so really, how could this day go wrong?
I also got to try a new food, since one of the conversation group members had visited Tokyo over Silver Week and brought back omiyage. It was what I call, for lack of better description, "chestnut flavored sweet red bean paste jelly logs." As unappetizing as it sounds, it's pretty good lol
And suddenly my Japanese burn-out rut broke! I felt good last night, and then today I walked down to buy a bentou from the lady at the snack window and the Japanese just came spewing from my mouth. Of course I made mistakes and of course she spoke slowly and chose her words carefully, but the fact that I could do it after all the involuntary tuning out I'd been doing was pretty sweet. Then the Vice Principal joined us and the three of us had the cutest Steph-loving chat ever about food and Silver week and other parts of Japanese life that I can now accomplish on my own.
Tonight I'm supposed to do some dinner with the other foreigners again, but I haven't heard from most of them so it might just be me biking out to the park in the next city to take more picture. No argument here! Now, after a 2-day work week I head off into the weekend ready for good times, hard work, and lots of cleaning that I'd put off all during Silver Week :)
Too bad I'll fall behind again when my computer gets sent off to be fixed.
Yesterday after classes ended I had a nice long work period and chat with the Smartest Girl in School. I'm really enjoying school a lot more now that I have relationships with some of the students.
Granted, this made me get home a little later than I wanted but I thought I'd still be okay for time before getting to my English conversation group. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed and after making excellent fried rice with egg (or more accurately for what I'd made, fried egg with rice lol) I arrived at the station just in time to watch my train take off.
Well, after some awkward, unintelligble conversations with The Actress, I hopped the next train and was only a few minutes late. I'd considered riding my bike again, but I knew it'd take just about as long as waiting for the next train, plus I'd be tired and half to bike all the way back. Going so far once a week is probably enough.
The conversation group will meet in an old rathole of a building, kind of creepy and run-down, in fact. At first I was a little nervous about how things were going to turn out, seeing as I've had bad experiences going into situations where people had certain expectations of me (which usually are not made known to me until after the fact). As it turned out, I'd successfully made my activities applicable to multiple levels of English, and even the students whose English was quite poor turned out warming up. Suddenly the impossible 20-something Japanese was also intelligible and between all the intelligibleness, both languages were a huge success. I ironed out my plans with Mochi for Sunday's cruise ship welcome, but I'll be dressing up as a samurai from 6 AM to 9 PM, so really, how could this day go wrong?
I also got to try a new food, since one of the conversation group members had visited Tokyo over Silver Week and brought back omiyage. It was what I call, for lack of better description, "chestnut flavored sweet red bean paste jelly logs." As unappetizing as it sounds, it's pretty good lol
And suddenly my Japanese burn-out rut broke! I felt good last night, and then today I walked down to buy a bentou from the lady at the snack window and the Japanese just came spewing from my mouth. Of course I made mistakes and of course she spoke slowly and chose her words carefully, but the fact that I could do it after all the involuntary tuning out I'd been doing was pretty sweet. Then the Vice Principal joined us and the three of us had the cutest Steph-loving chat ever about food and Silver week and other parts of Japanese life that I can now accomplish on my own.
Tonight I'm supposed to do some dinner with the other foreigners again, but I haven't heard from most of them so it might just be me biking out to the park in the next city to take more picture. No argument here! Now, after a 2-day work week I head off into the weekend ready for good times, hard work, and lots of cleaning that I'd put off all during Silver Week :)